New release: Bastion
And yeah, sure, I’m a little late with this one (somehow it passed under my radar), but look at it this way: the game has been patched repeatedly since its release, meaning that you’re going to have a better experience with it than all of those “I knew about it the day it came out” people anyway.
Here is the game’s trailer:
Also, here is a review by the venerable John Walker of Rock Paper Shotgun. His thoughts? “I recommend you don’t read this, but instead just go and buy Bastion and play it.” For this privilege of buying the game, the game’s makers demand a patronage of $14.99. My advice: grab the free demo, give it a try, and see if you like it.
Oh, also: you can check out the game’s soundtrack here and buy it for $10. It’s really good.
As an aside: some of you might question whether this game really counts as “indie” due to the fact that it was published by Warner Brothers’ game division. Based on what I’ve read, however, WB didn’t pick up the game until March 10, 2011; Bastion was first released on XBLA on July 20, 2011. My guess is that this was probably late enough in development that WB couldn’t exercise much control over the game’s content; and as far as I’m concerned, creative independence from a publisher is the sine qua non of indie-ness. I’ll allow it.
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I just bought “Bastion” from Steam this week! I love the narrator, the music, the world. Sure enough, in terms of game value this is a simple hack’n’slash with almost action-arcade mechanics, but still, it’s worth getting for the music and narration alone. And it’s nice to support the indie underdog :-).